Additionally, the following post from Trent Reznor showed up on the welcome page of the Nine Inch Nails website yesterday:

Hello everyone. I’ve waited a LONG time to be able to make the
following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally
free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have
been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the
business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very
different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a
direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate.
Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008.
Exciting times, indeed.

This follows a performance in Australia last month, when Reznor expressed frustration with the high prices that labels charge for CDs.

“Steal it,” Reznor told the audience. “Steal away. Steal and steal, and steal some more and give it to all your friends.”